Making girls happy

If you want to know some tricks to make nice sparkling boxes as a party favor, go ahead reading. These 'L 7' boxes we made as a treat for L's birthday and are a mix of this and this. Here and here you can read more on my blog about these boxes. In my case the pattern paper was made using these books. I did some photoshopping to achieve the desired colors, printed the paper and cut it into squares of 17 and 18 cm. But of course you could use any paper you want or even buy these kind of little boxes.

Because I wanted L (of 7) to be able to make her own treat, the tutorial can be used as a kids craft as well. We first made the bottoms of the boxes following this tutorial, using the 17 cm paper squares.

Home bakery

This year we really had no idea for L's birthday party. Maybe it's because she's kind of more allround compared to M. But M had a proposal: why not baking cookies with her friends? So that's what happened last Wednesday afternoon. The very same morning (!) I hardly managed to sew these baker hats, and quickly taped them to the wall as a decoration before the girls arrived. I'm talking about the usual time-management that I seem to learn never...

The fabrics I had laying around and finally I was happy with the adjustability, see the velcro detail. And yes, there was a big mess so we can say it was a big success. And a good idea indeed, M! The girls so loved to knead!

The girls baked colorful cookies and took them home in a self-folded cookie box, explained by little teacher L.

More and more

We made up this 'L 7' treat for school because L loves origami even more than M. She made quite a few of these boxes without any complain but wanted to play outside as well after a while ;) She was allowed. She joined again for the glitter topping. We made some photo's during the process, so I'll show you soon a how to.

The pattern paper I made with a Sinterklaas present. This and this book and two cd's full of nice patterns. Oh, there will be more pattern paper crafts!

We added a nut mix for her classmates and cookies after this afterlasting recipe (with the half of the sugar), found via Kristel, for the visitors at home. Inside I added a box of baking paper, which appeared to be a challenge to fold. Yes, I'm crazy, making about 50 boxes... But it worked like therapy for me, so it's fine.

Petit Pan for petite L

L became 7 years old last week! It has been fantastic days. Today the garlands and balloons were cleared away. Last holidays were there for several preparations.
No mama, I do have enough clothes, she made me understand. But, after showing this image, she absolutely wanted to be a birthday girl in such a dress. Two Petit Pan fabrics (wow!) were ordered and, as L couldn't decide, we decided to use both. Now in the end I really love the combination of the fabrics, my first Petit Pans, including the red lining.


Making the dress was like a course for me. The beautiful book of these two sewing genius guided me. But there was a lot of error! I sewed the outer and lining fabric together on the sides and discovered my mistake quite late! Then the making of my first blind zipper. I didn't understand how to attach the lining to the zipper, but after a little more thinking it succeeded finally. But let's be positive: I learned!

And most important: L is so happy, she keeps on swirling. Something she wanted for a long, long time. And looking at this birthday girl makes me happy!

A dear friend

L's friend Gaia is only three days younger than L. This is what L did bring along to her birthday party a week ago.

Let's knead

Next week our house will turn into a bakery: eight little bakers will put their little fingers into the dough, as L is giving a baking cookies party.

This is the invitation we made together. Making it improved my Photoshop skills. I made a picture of L at the table and separate photo's of the supplies. Some are Google images. The tablecloth is a pattern I made with my new books (read about it later). In the end a lace was added between the folded card with double sided tape and corners were punched.

2013

This year I didn't focus: leather, paper, fabrics, beads, knitting needles and more were hold in my hands. And I probably won't choose one direction in 2013 either. Maybe I'm able to add ceramics or wood? I'm not sure. Please drop by again to see in which direction my life goes. Thank you all for encouraging me by leaving some words.

Wishing you a creative 2013!

Giveaway winner

It's the 20th, right? So there's something to giveaway today! Thanks for so many nice words.
These days are really busy and that's the only reason that I had to rely on the unoriginal, but handy random.org to do the selection. No doubt about it: Jozefien is the winner of this leather sample bag. Please send me your address, so I can send this little present to you. The rest of you I might cheer up with this...
Finally, let me be in time this year: a merry x-mas to all of you!

First one

The making of this pencil pouch -my first ever!- was fun. At the exciting moment of turning it, I was surrounded by quite some kids, who looked at the pouch as looking at a play. They were surprised that a wad of textile can turn into a common object.
Thanks Spiegelstiksels and Oon for helping me! Especially the first tutorial was useful to me, but the cut corners didn't align one hundred per cent. I just trimmed them a bit to make them align. No problem! Upper right: I turned it inside out to show you the red inside.
This prototype was a birthday present for L's friend next door. I'm sorry, Jil, that I forgot to add the tabs. And next time I'll use interfacing for both outer fabric and lining. I'll make you an improved one as well.
Btw, can you believe that these are M's very first felt pens? Sinterklaas gave them to her and she's happy!

Mix & match

As you can read here, I came to these leather sample bags because I wanted to have a new bag matching my dress in no time. This bag is made of four leather samples, that were laying around in the office. The only things I bought were a leather lace and eyelets. When you want to try this bag as well, please don't bother about sizes. Exact sizes don't matter. You can choose to make a landscape or a portrait model. The tutorial will do in both cases. Just avoid cutting the leather when possible to save time. Here and here you can see reversible examples. The bag pictured above measures 16 x 26 cm.
When you don't know where to get the leather, maybe these links (that I didn't try myself) work out for you: Dawanda nl and en.

This is what you need:

1. 4 (preferably very different) leather samples. If you want to know: mine are 20 x 25 cm and are a good quality of Moore & Giles. Or cut 4 rectangles out of leather if you don't get your hands on samples. You might even use some thicker quality felt instead of leather.
2. 4 eyelets, inner diameter about 5 mm, to hammer through the leather to finish the holes for the strap. When you want to make a non-reversible bag, 2 eyelets are sufficient.
3. normal but good quality thread
4. double sided foam tape (like Tesa, often used to mount mirrors)
5. 3 m of flat leather lace. Note that the double lace should fit through the rings. Mine is 5 mm wide.